


White Hair and Black Eyes

by orphan_account



Category: Dishonored (Video Games), Dracula - Bram Stoker, Hellsing
Genre: Blood and Gore, Child Abuse, Child Soldiers, Gen, Human Experimentation, Human Trafficking, Kidnapping, Mentions of the Holocaust, Nazis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:47:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23801818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The Void touches many worlds, some more strongly than others. But when tied to an Avatar, its influence grows that much more powerful. Many people over the ages have heard the whispers of the black-eyed man, using the power he offered to their own ends. Some became monsters. Some hunted them. And some simply lingered in the dark, waiting for a chance to be free.Aka an experimental multi-crossover fic in which I imply that the vast majority of people in the Hellsing universe received their supernatural abilities from the new Avatar of the Void.
Kudos: 5





	White Hair and Black Eyes

_The realm between life and death touched the minds of the dreaming and the dying alike, and She was both. For nearly half a century now, She was dying without death, dreaming without sleep. Eyes roamed Her twisted, mangled form, cold hands pulling Her apart and stitching Her back together again. They took and they took, they used Her blood and bones to make monsters for their war, and She was powerless to even beg. Her only solace was in Her sleep._

_In Her dreams, She could see His face once more._

_She didn’t know who He was, but She knew in the deepest parts of herself, in the core that even the cold, cruel scientists couldn’t reach with their scalpels and their needles, that He was important to her. He spoke to Her, sometimes, whispering secrets in her ears. They were rarely pleasant but She didn’t care, so long as She could hear His voice. Sometimes, He said nothing at all, simply staring at Her with those strange, alien eyes of His._

_She hated those particular visits the most. When He stared at Her like that She felt like an insect writing under the microscope. It was no different from being awake._

_One night He came to Her and He didn’t whisper of children hiding in attics, of cold chambers filled with choking gas and terrified screams, of pregnant women strapped to tables and vivisected. Instead, He told Her:_

“The Angel of Death will free you.”

 _She could have wept._ _At last! At long long last a release from this endless torment! She fell into His arms and sobbed, her cries echoing through this cold empty world between worlds. For as long as She had known Him, He had never shown even the barest hint of emotion. But as She cried in joy for Her impending end, She felt His cold arms hold Her oh so gently, one hand coming to rest atop Her head and stroke Her hair with the tenderness of a lover._

_He didn’t appear to her again._

_Time passed. She had no way of knowing how much in this half-dead state. But without Him to visit Her dreams and whisper in Her ear, it dragged on and on, second by second, or century by century. She couldn’t know only three years had passed since their last conversation._

_W_ _here had He gone? Why wasn’t He coming back? Why did He leave Her there to suffer alone in the dark?_

_They packed up Her withered carcass. Wrapped it in chains, nailed Her to the inside of a coffin and loaded_ _Her onto a blimp bound for England. Her homeland. She wished_ _S_ _he could have seen it._

 _She heard the screams. Smelled the blood laced with terror and despair. Then She felt the flames lick at_ _H_ _er bones. This was it._ _Just like He’d said, t_ _he Angel of Death had come. There were others sharing Her pyre, but She didn’t know who._

_The last thing She remembered was a boy’s voice._

“ _Poor Mina,” he’d said._

_Ah, that was her name. She’d almost forgotten it. It was nice to finally have it back after so many years._

_Mina just wished she could have learned His name in the end._

  
  


* * *

  
  


Walter C. Dornez was a child of eight years when he first saw the man with black eyes.

Up until that point he’d thought of himself as an unremarkable person who would grow to live an unremarkable life. That was not to say he was dissatisfied with the life he led. Every day attended school like a child his age should, bid farewell by parents who loved him, who welcomed him back home each afternoon with a pat on the head and a hot meal. Every night he went to sleep in a warm bed, tucked in by the loving hands of his mother and watched over by the warm gaze of his father. It was a life any child should have. He never thought it would change.

And then one night he woke up unexpectedly in the dark, not roused by his father’s hands or the scent of breakfast cooking but something else altogether. It took him several incoherent moments to register the strange sounds coming from the hallway. People moving around in his house. He hadn’t known his parents were expecting company.

There was something else; a smell that lingered on the air, hot and thick. In years to come, the scent would become burned permanently into Walter’s nostrils, but at this time he couldn’t place it.

Small, pudgy feet swung over the side of his bed and made their way over the cold wood. The darkness pressed in around him, causing his throat to clench uncomfortably, but he was safe at home, his mother and father only a room away. He didn’t know true terror.

Not yet.

As he stood on his tiptoes, grasping for the doorknob, he faced it for the first and last time in his life.

There was so much red. Spattered all over the walls and floor, staining the couch and the bookshelves.

Pooling under the corpses of Walter’s mother and father. Walter stared, silver eyes swimming with hot tears. They were so unnaturally still and broken, limbs twisted into impossible shapes and clothing and skin shredded like tissue. They almost didn’t look human. Those couldn’t be his parents. This had to be a nightmare.

He was so transfixed on the bodies on the ground he’d completely overlooked the strangers standing in his den.

“Ah, whoops! Guess we was bein’ too loud after all,” one said in an almost jovial tone. If not for the blood on his face and the rows of dagger like teeth in his mouth, his tone and demeanor would have almost been jovial. “Grab the brat, yeah? I gotta deal with these two.”

Walter kicked, bit, fought as hard as he could as a second figure swept up behind him and snatched him off the ground. When he started to scream the second stranger hurled him into the wall and kicked him hard in the ribs. The child let out a shuddering gasp; it felt like he was dying.

He wasn’t, of course, but to someone who’d so far in his life only dealt with minor scrapes and bruises from playing out in the garden or the schoolyard, the pain was unimaginable. Already he could see black spots forming in his vision, and when he craned his head towards where his parents lay, he saw the first stranger take a great knife to their throats.

For a moment, he imagined he saw his mother moving again. Then the world went dark.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Walter’s dreams were strange and frightening. He saw monsters swimming through the air like fish. Silver strings slicing apart flesh and stone alike. Lakes of blood. Disembodied eyes peering through the dark.

When he next woke he was laying curled in the back of a moving truck, surrounded by frightened children like himself. They’d all curled in on themselves and were staring at nothing, eyes blank. As Walter stirred the sound of rattling metal reached his ears and he realized he and the other children were chained together.

“Wh-what’s going on?” he whispered to the other children. “Who are you?”

Someone whimpered. Walter pulled himself up to sit on his knees, the cold metal seeping through his thin pajamas.

“Where are we going?” he tried again. He wasn’t sure if he was shaking from the cold or the fear.

Still, nobody answered, but Walter heard somebody begin to sniffle quietly. Eventually Walter gave up and pulled himself to the wall of the truck, drawing his knees to his chest and resting his chin atop them. He thought about going back to sleep but every time he closed his eyes he saw his mother’s pale corpse, dressed in red. Immediately his throat closed on itself and his eyes swam. The manacles around his wrists rattled noisily as he vainly attempted to swipe the tears away.

All too soon, the truck pulled to a stop. Walter could feel the palpable tension in the back of the truck as the children all tensed. They all went still, silent, straining their ears for any bit of information they could get from outside. Grown ups’ voices. The door of the front being slammed shut. Boots crunching on gravel.

Suddenly the doors swung open. Several children shrieked and Walter was one of them, the sound tearing itself from his throat before he could stop it. The man who’d thrown the truck doors wide just laughed at their distress. Young Walter was petrified. Like most children, he’d had nightmares before of monsters with glowing red eyes and sharp fangs. He’d never seen a man with either.

“We got a pretty good haul tonight,” the monster-man said to one of the others as he grabbed the nearest child by her shackles and dragged her from the truck, stringing the rest along by the rattling chains. “The aristocrats are gonna pay good money for this much virgin blood.”

Walter’s heart leaped into his throat. Blood. These monsters really were going to eat them! One little boy started openly wailing. A girl collapsed to her knees as she was dragged from the truck. The monster-men just dragged them up, hauling the children out of the truck one by one. Walter couldn’t believe this was happening, that this wasn’t some horrible nightmare. But then it slammed into him with all the force of a tidal wave; this was reality.

His parents were dead.

So were all of these other children’s, most likely.

They’d been kidnapped by monsters.

And they were going to be eaten.

He was going to die.

_He was going to die._

_He was going to DIE._

A cold calm settled over Walter. There were several monsters about but his eyes settled on the one that had the first girl in their chain in his grasp, who was talking aloud about the profits he’d make from selling their blood, who was laughing at their fear. Chains rankling in his ears, Walter launched himself at the monster with a feral cry. With his arms chained together there wasn’t much he could do so he did the one thing he could and headbutted the monster with all the might his eight year old body could muster. It was more fortune than anything else that his head happened to be lined up with the monster-man’s crotch and his haphazard attack had the monster doubling over in pain. The other monsters watching the display only laughed but Walter took the opportunity to attempt to flee.

His valiant effort was cut pitifully short as the chain ran out. The other children were scrambling in different directions, and some were just slumped to the ground directionless. The other monsters didn’t even bother trying to wrangle them. The were small, helpless, confused children, stolen in the middle of the night and chained together. Even if they weren’t, Walter had no idea where he was or where he might go. The monsters just laughed at his pitiful attempt, and when the one he’d headbutted recovered he retaliated in kind.

Walter raised his hands to cover his face as the monster raised his foot and then rained down devastating blows. The kick from before was nothing compared to this assault. The other monsters laughed even harder as they watched their comrade thoroughly abuse that poor child. By the time he’d gotten out all of his anger Walter’s body was a mess of swollen, discolored bruises. The monster swore at him, reaching down to grab him by the arm and hoist him to his feet, and when he did Walter felt a searing pain race through his arm.

“Stupid fucking shit,” the monster growled. “Try something like that again and I’ll tear your throat out right here and now.”

The cries of the other children were subdued into frightened whimpers. The rest of the monsters surrounded the children and marched them inside, bare feet over a path of dirt and stone into a large, grey block of a building. Inside, a cavernous space had been filled with rows upon rows of cages, many of them already filled. More children, despondent and hopeless. Walter and the rest of the children from the truck were at last unchained and then shoved into the cages themselves, split evenly by gender.

Walter tried to dig his heels into the ground, to resist, but after the beating he’d received he was just a tender mass of pulverized flesh, even weaker than any of the other children, and they hurled him into his cage easily. All the while the monsters laughed and joked, talked about their plans for the weekend, what was on the telly earlier, what they’d read in the newspapers. The same sorts of things his parents talked about with their friends. Bile climbed up Walter’s throat.

Eventually he found the energy to drag himself up and sit, leaning against the bars of the cage. Then he watched. Observed the monsters moving around. Listened to their conversations. There was almost no light in the building, aside from the slivers of moonlight spilling in from the narrow windows, but even so the monsters didn’t seem to have any trouble moving around in the dark.

Eventually, exhaustion caught up with him. He had, after all, been woken in the middle of the night and terror could only sustain him for so long. Especially after the beatings he’d received. Despite his best efforts, Walter eventually found his eyes slipping closed, sleep overtaking him.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The cage was open.

Walter blinked once, and then rubbed his eyes just to be sure. But yes, the cage was definitely open. And there was no one around! No monsters moving boxes, or dragging children. No children either, for that matter. But Walter didn’t have time to wonder about their absence. He pulled himself to his feet, only belatedly wondering about the lack of aches and pains, and bolted, fleeing the cramped space as fast as his short legs could carry him.

It didn’t take long for him to notice something wrong, however. It was much more light than before, but only just enough for him to see the dusty grey path before him. The dirt floor gave way to cool stone, and the warehouse that seemed to stretch on and on eventually ended in a shredded tunnel of ripped metal, pieces of which hung suspended in the air as though frozen in time.

Walter slowed to a clumsy halt, staring out into the endless grey vortex ahead of him. He could see what appeared to be splintered slags of black stone floating in the distance, gigantic creatures that looked like whales flying through the air, if whales had dozens of fins and scales and tentacles. Turning, he found the path to the warehouse still there, but only the tunnel through which he’d come. There was no outside of the building. The strange paradox hurt his head, so he turned his eyes away.

There were two paths only; forward and back. Walter didn’t want to go back into the warehouse, to the cages, so he kept moving forward. He tried to make sense of the place he found himself in, how he’d gotten there. A part of him wondered if it might be a dream. Reaching up, he gave his cheek a hard pinch. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried.

“Walter C. Dornez.”

With a startled gasp, Walter turned around, searching for the source of the voice. The path to the warehouse was gone. He could still see the circle of shredded metal and the inside of the dreaded place but the stone path had fallen into the abyss, leaving him no way to backtrack. There was no other person either. Turning forward, he let out another gasp when he finally saw the owner of the mysterious voice.

At first Walter thought he was looking at an old man. The stranger’s hair was stark white, like his grandmother’s, but unlike his grandmother the stranger’s face was completely free of wrinkles. Chains and belts hung from his strange black clothing, hugging his thin frame and making him seem almost sickly. Walter wondered if the man was maybe ill, or even dying.

Then he realized the man was floating. He stood still as a statue, hands folded neatly behind his back, posture firm, but his feet were several inches above the ground. Stranger still were his eyes. Whereas the stranger’s hair was gossamer white, his eyes were dark as pitch. It looked as though they had been swallowed up with ink, completely blotting out the whites and whatever color they used to be.

Walter had his mouth open to ask how the stranger knew his name, when the stranger vanished in a gust of wind and swirling black shards.

“Your life has certainly taken an unexpected turn, hasn’t it?” the stranger’s voice continued from somewhere to Walter’s left. The boy whirled towards the stranger, eyes going wide. “Parents taken from you, dragged from your home in the night, chained and caged like an animal, ready for the slaughter unless your new masters decide to fatten you up first.”

He vanished again. Walter walked forward a little, underneath an arch of craggy rock.

“Even if escape were possible, where might you go? Your home has been defiled, your loving mother and father slain where they stood, their corpses desecrated.”

The man had reappeared atop a precariously balanced stack of rocks and as he spoke he rose to his feet, standing on the motes of dust in the air as though they were solid brick and pacing before the young teary eyed child.

“And whatever hope you had of a peaceful life is dead with them. Where could you go now that would be more secure than your own home? How can you ever again have peace knowing what waits for you in the dark?”

Walter’s heart leaped into his throat as the stranger turned those inky black eyes on him.

“So what do you want to do now?”

“I-I want...” Walter swallowed the hard lump in his throat. He tried to say it again, but the words caught in his throat.

“You could accept death with grace, live the remainder of your days in peace knowing you’ll soon see your beloved mother and father. Or...” the stranger said when Walter couldn’t force his voice to cooperate. “The world has begun and ended a hundred thousand times over but still this place remains, and it has power. My mark would grant you just a fragment of that power, but it would be enough. Should you accept it, you could have a life. One filled with oceans of blood, but a life nonetheless.”

Walter sniffled. He reached up to furiously wipe the tears from his eyes. Then he steeled himself, despite the sound of his pulse in his ears and the fresh tears already running to replace the ones he’d scrubbed away.

The stranger seemed to understand. A nod, and suddenly Walter felt a surge of something inside of him. It was like the place surrounding him, frigid cold and boiling hot all at once, pouring into him and changing him from the inside out. Then he felt it all compact and eat its way through his body until it surged down his arm and embedded itself onto the inside of his bones. Looking down at the back of his hand, Walter watched as a strange light shone through end etched a bizarre marking into his skin.

“Take care, Walter,” the stranger said. “I am very interested in seeing what you will do.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


Walter woke, bruised and sore, on the floor of his cage. So it was a dream after all.

The marking on his hand proved otherwise.

Walter stared at it, tracing the strange lines with his fingertips, wondering what it meant. Was it writing? Just a cool looking mark? What was it _for?_

He was snapped from his musings by the sound of the cage door swinging wide open. The children inside trembled, Walter seizing up with fear. What was going to happen? Were they going to be eaten now?

The mark on his hand burned. He figured he was supposed to use it to escape. If only he knew how.

“Alright piggies,” the fanged monster said, reaching into the cage. “Time for you to go to market.”

Walter lunged. Without thought or reason, he threw himself at the monster reaching for the trembling ankle of a blonde boy about his age, and sank his teeth into the monster’s wrist.

Needless to say, the monster was not pleased.

Walter’s head clanged against the bars of his cage as the monster wrenched his arm free. With a ferocious snarl the monster grabbed him by his jet hair and ripped him from his cell, hurling him to the floor.

Much to Walter’s surprise, he found it didn’t hurt nearly as much as any of the blows from before.

“Looks like we got a volunteer,” the monster growled, slamming the cage shut and locking it before turning on Walter. “You know, you’ve been pissing me off since you got here.”

Fingers trembling, Walter pulled himself to his feet. The skin on the back of his hand burned and itched.

“I’m gonna be glad to be rid of you, brat.”

Fangs bared, the monster-man lunged for him. Time seemed to slow as every nerve in Walter’s body lit on fire. He knew he would die if he didn’t do something, and although he didn’t quite know yet what he was doing, he acted.

The mark on his hand glowed.

A flash of silver that disappeared as quickly as it had come.

Blood gushed from the fine line that had appeared around the monster’s neck, and a moment later his head fell from his body, a geyser of blood shooting from the stump.

The rest of the monsters looked on wide eyed, shock and terror paralyzing them. They weren’t armed. They were only moving human children and they had fangs and claws and superior strength. Why should they need to be armed? Walter stared in equal shock at the corpse laying on the ground before him, dead by his hands, before his eyes fell down to his trembling fingers. The light from the mark reflected off of the silvery threads protruding from his fingertips. The ones that had sliced through the monster’s throat like a warm knife parting butter.

Bile climbed the child’s throat and he clamped his hands over his mouth to prevent himself from vomiting. He’d just killed a man. The strings around his fingers were biting the skin on his face but all he could think about was the fact that he’d removed a person’s head from the rest of their body just by swinging his hand.

A life filled with oceans of blood. Was this what the black-eyed man meant?

A feral cry ripped the poor boy from his thoughts. Suddenly the rest of the monsters were throwing themselves at him, claws outstretched and teeth bared to rip him to pieces. A cold calm settled over Walter as he raised his fingers once more.

He’d never done this before. Could barely even use the marionettes his aunt got him for Christmas last year. He was a novice, but simultaneously an expert, the delicate, razor-sharp strings responding the slightest twitch of his fingers. Walter sliced the monsters to pieces, chunks of meat and bone collapsing to the ground in gristly heaps. The children in the cages watched stupefied at the display. It was hard to tell if they were more horrified by the monsters or Walter.

Walter wasn’t sure himself.

Soon enough there was only one monster-man left. Only one person he hadn’t killed. The last of the monsters was backed up against a row of cages, limbs stiff and eyes wide. It would be so easy. He could kill all of them.

A drop of red rolled down one of his wires and dripped to the floor. There was so much of it. He’d thought the pool of blood in his den had been gruesome, but it was nothing compared to this. In his moment of hesitation, the last monster let out a strangled cry and bolted for the door and Walter just let him. He’d done enough. He didn’t want to kill anymore.

Before the man even reached the door the sound of a gunshot shattered the near silence. Walter couldn’t bring himself to feel much of anything as the man slumped to the ground and a bunch of strange people in yellow uniforms came marching in, guns blazing.

The next few hours were a blur. Help had finally come, but far too late. The people in yellow let the children out of the cages, wrapped them in blankets, offered them compassion and comfort. Walter didn’t hear what the officer who’d led him away from the other children was saying. He just stared at the floor.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“ _There’s so much doubt, but there are some things I know are true. The Outsider is no more, and with that, the world will change in ways none of us can know. But the Void is still there, echoing just beyond what you can see. And there’s no one left to say who will and won’t be touched by its magic._ ”

~Billie Lurk

**Author's Note:**

> This comes from an idea that's been floating in my head that I doubt I'll ever write in full. Honestly I just thought the worlds would mesh pretty well together. It's probably obvious based just on the tags who the new avatar is, but I'm still not going to outright say his name.


End file.
